Glowing Bread Clay Recipe

Fall Recipe for Play ~ Glowing Bread Clay. No Black light needed!

We are back for day three of our Fall Play Recipe series. So far we have shared an edible Pumpkin Spiced Marshmallow Dough recipe and a Homemade Cranberry Fall Paint Recipe. My kids could not help but be excited about today’s Glowing Theme! We have been wanting to make Bread Clay for a while, and this seemed like the perfect opportunity. Look for our Glowing Bread Clay Recipe at the bottom of this post.

Start by cutting the crusts off your bread. (You can leave them on, but it will change the texture of the bread slightly). Parents may want to do this step, just to keep little fingers safe.

Next, tear the crust-less bread into tiny pieces. To make clean up easy, we decided to mix everything in a rinsed out tin can (please make sure your tin can does not have sharp edges!) The smaller the crumbles of bread are, the smoother your dough will be.

Add the white glue to the bread crumbs and stir with a plastic spoon. Next the kids added the Glowing Glitter Glue. (We received our glitter glue from Craft Project Ideas to for free. I have to say, it is super easy to charge and glows really bright. Way better than any of the glowing paints that we have tried in the past.) The glitter glue worked perfectly for this project. Not only did it glow brightly, but it also worked as part of the binder that holds the clay together.

The dough will start out feeling sticky and gummy. As you work with it, it should start feeling similar to a porcelain clay. If you are finding the dough is sticky/wet, then add a few more bread crumbs. If it feels dry and cracks, then add a little more glue. The dough will eventually have a stretchy and pliable texture that is perfect for molding.

The kids loved adding googly eyes to add to their silly monster creations.

Glowing Bread Clay Recipe:

5 Slices of white bread ~ stale bread works great (as long as it is not too dried out)
3 Tbsp of White School glue
3 Tbsp of Glow Glitter Glue

Don’t have a Black light? No problem, neither do we:) The kids just kept a LED flashlight by them and charged the dough as needed. The kids loved creating and building with their glowing dough. Recharging it with a flashlight was half the fun.

The Glowing Dough will air dry in about 1-3 days depending on how thick your creations are. We have not had any trouble with the dough cracking as it was drying. This recipe is perfect for making glowing beads, jewelry, and small creations. You are limited only by your imagination. Remember that this dough is will dissolve if it becomes wet. To preserve your creation then once they are dry, coat them with a 50/50 water/glue mixture or a varnish.

You can also save the dough to play with another day. Simply wrap tightly in plastic and store in the refrigerator. It should last a few weeks this way. If it dries slightly you can try adding more glue to see if you can revive it or work with it in damp hands.

For more fun inspiration follow my Art and Play Recipe board on Pinterest.

We had so much fun with this glowing challenge. Make sure to stop by and check out the other posts in this fun Fall Play Recipe series.

Homemade Glow-in-the-Dark Window Clings from Blog Me Mom

Glowing Magic Milk Experiment from Learn Play Imagine

Edible Glowing “Spiderwebs” Sensory Play from Fun at Home with Kids

Tomorrow we are back sharing some of our favorite Scents of Fall! Yummy!!!!

Homemade Cranberry Fall Paint Recipe

Fall is right around the corner, and I am ready to embrace everything that I love about this colorful season. If you are just joining our Fall Play Recipe series, yesterday we shared 4 fun fall dough recipes including our edible Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough. My kids had a blast molding, shaping and tasting our sugary mixture. Today our challenge was to create a fall paint recipe. Since cranberries are a staple at our house around Thanksgiving, we decided to create a Homemade Cranberry Fall Paint Recipe.

This paint smells just like cranberries and the kids loved the texture.

I am not sure about your house, but cranberry sauce is a staple at our Thanksgiving table. You know the kind that is a jelly and comes in a can. After the meal is over, it is inevitable that there are leftover cranberries in our fridge for weeks. No one wants to throw them out, but no one wants to eat them either. So instead of being wasteful, we decided to create a fun Fall Paint Recipe that smells wonderful!

This paint smells just like cranberries making it perfect for fall. It is thicker and stickier than traditional paint, making it just right for creating beautiful foil paintings.

Start by spreading a thin layer of Cranberry Paint (recipe at the bottom of the post) onto a sheet of tinfoil. You can use a paint roller or a spatula, the kids had fun using both. Don’t worry too much about how it looks at this point. You don’t want super thick areas, but the paint will tend to “level” itself slightly.

Once the paint is spread on the tin foil, grab a q-tip and start creating. Bree immediately ran outside to find a pretty fall leaf to copy. Love that! The q-tip will remove paint and reveal the shinny foil below. The best part is the kids can simply roll over their painting and start drawing again.

I love the little speckles of cranberries in the paint. This is what it looks like when the kids painting are still wet. The paint will dry in a few hours.

I love how beautiful the paint looks when dry, and it still smells just like cranberries. Who would have thought that cranberries would make such a wonderful textured paint, and dry so beautifully. This is one that your kids will want to try!

To make your own Homemade Cranberry Fall Paint Recipe:

1/2 cup Cranberry Sauce
3 TBS White School Glue
1/4 cup Corn Starch
2 TBS Liquid Starch
You will also need Tinfoil, q-tips and a spatula or paint roller.

The thick texture our Cranberry Fall Paints is perfect for using as a finger paint as well. The kids had a blast sliding the sticky paint along the smooth texture of the tinfoil.

For more fun inspiration follow my Art and Play Recipe board on Pinterest.

Make sure to check out the other three Paint recipes that are a part of our fun Fall Play series! There are some really creative ideas shared, and I know my kids will want to try them all.

Fall Scented Whipped Edible Paints from Fun at Home with Kids

Scented Edible Apple Paints from Blog Me Mom

Apple Printing Eruptions with Sidewalk Chalk Paint from Learn Play Imagine

Tomorrow we are back sharing Fall Glowing Recipes that totally rock!!!! I have peeked at a few and I have to say, they are really amazing. This is going to be one post you wont want to miss:)

Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough

I am excited to be part of a week long series all about Fall Play Recipes. For this series I will be collaborating with 3 creative friends, Learn Play Imagine, Fun at Home with Kids, and Blog Me Mom. We selected a different fall theme for each day, which means 4 creative play recipes will be shared each day. By the time our series is done, you will be armed with 20 new play recipes that I know you will want to try;) Can you tell I’m over the moon with excitement? Today’s theme is all about creating a fun Fall Dough Recipe. I had my kids help brainstorm some things that made them think of fall. They had lots of creative suggestions, including marshmallows and pumpkin pie. Yes please! Check out the kids super simple and edible Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough.

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No-Cook Fall Play Recipe that’s Edible!

Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough Recipe:

1 Jar of Marshmallow Creme (7oz) ~ or also called Marshmallow Fluff
3 – 4 cups of Icing Sugar ~ more to dust the dough to keep it from sticking
Pumpkin Pie Spice
Graham Crackers
Sprinkles ~ just for fun

You are basically making a Marshmallow Fondant which is normally used to ice cakes. However, this simple recipe is no-cook and contains only 2 ingredients. We are all about making this simple!

You are welcome to mix the marshmallow cream and the icing sugar in a stand mixer, however you will be missing out on half the fun. My kids had a blast squishing and mixing the sticky mixture into a dough with their hands. No special instructions, just dump everything together and mix. Let me tell you, it is super sticky to begin with, but with a little elbow grease (and lots of icing sugar) it will become a smooth and wonderful dough.

My kids informed me it was hard work to get the dough to form, but the sticky mess was so worth it. Depending on the age of your kids, you may want to help with the mixing. they also enjoyed tasting the dough in at all its different sticky stages. The dough is a type of fondant, so in moderation it is totally safe to eat.

If you are feeling like your dough is more the constancy of warm gooey marshmallows, then try adding more icing sugar. We also found that the dough preformed best when it was cool. We wrapped ours in plastic and placed in the fridge to cool down.

You are welcome to add the Pumpkin pie spice at any time. We were having so much fun playing, that we forgot to add it until our dough was already formed. Don’t worry, the spices were easy to fold in and smelled delicious.

The combination of marshmallows and pumpkin pie spice reminds me of fall and thanksgiving. Growing up one of our traditional Thanksgiving side dishes was a sweet potato casserole with a marshmallow topping. This dough totally brings me back to sweet childhood memories.

The kids loved this little bakery set up. They had a blast rolling, cutting and playing with the yummy spiced dough. These little marshmallow pillows were a favorite to create with the pizza cutter.

Since this is an edible dough, the kids wanted to make an “after work” treat for their Dad. They excitedly made bit sized s’more treats by rolling the spiced dough in crushed graham crackers. How fun. Chuck was a great sport and totally went right along. Love that guy!

Mini cupcakes were the next item to be created at their little bakery. To make different varieties of cupcakes, they added graham cracker crumbs right into some of the dough.

Like any great bakery, you always need lots of sprinkles! I was surprised at how carefully the sprinkles were added. Each sprinkle was placed with care on top of the cupcakes. I love the pumpkin and bat sprinkles, perfect for fall.

Our marshmallow dough was easy to form into balls and roll out with the rolling pin. Although, we found it became sticky the longer it was held and played with it. We kept a container of icing sugar handy so they could keep dusting their hands, creations and the work surface which worked great. Plus icing sugar is just plain fun to play with!

The kids had so much fun playing and creating in their mini bakery. It always surprises me how long kids will play with the simplest set up. We used utensils straight from my kitchen cupboards and a few baking goods from the pantry, creating hours of endless play.

I love that it this simple fall recipe was cheap to make and easy to create with! It also stores well in the fridge wrapped in plastic. We may have to try our hand at decorating a cake next time we pull it out:)

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For more fun inspiration follow my Art and Play Recipe board on Pinterest.

For more Fall Dough Recipe inspiration check out these creative ideas:

Fall Playdough Recipe from Learn Play Imagine

Pumpkin Spice Salt Dough For Ornaments from Fun at Home with Kids

Fall Activities Apple Dough Recipe from Blog Me Mom

Tomorrow we will each be sharing a creative Fall Paint Recipe.

Ocean Sensory Pool

I am so excited to have Heather from the Crayon Box Chronicles guest posting on Housing A Forest today. Do you ever just stumble on a blog and want to read every single post? Click on the link above and you will be lost among creative ideas and beautiful photos ~ two of my favorite things! I love the Ocean Sensory Pool that Heather is sharing with us today!

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Ahoy! I’m Heather and I explore sensory, art, and messy play at Crayon Box Chronicles! I’m a former window designer and stylist from the Big Apple! I traded my push pins for paint and now I’m a proud mommy to my budding paleontologist — little C! I’m so happy to be here today at Housing A Forest to explore sensory play, origami, and shapes with you! Let’s dive into the Big Blue O together! All aboard! Here’s a sneak peek inside our ocean sensory pool!

Let’s get started! Pull out your wax paper, yes I said wax paper, and let’s make our boats! Wether this is your first time making origami boats or you’re an expert, you’ll find this fold to be a breeze! With a little practice the kids can fold it too! This is a hooded Sampan boat! It floats in water too! Why wax paper? Well, it lasts longer in water than paper, it’s so versatile, and we love using basic household goods for projects! To learn the fold just follow this great tutorial!

Here are a few tips for the boats:

Cut 12 x 12 sheets using a paper cutter or ruler edge.
The paper will cross over at this point (pointer finger), that’s ok, just be consistent on both sides.
When you flip the boat over and push the bottom through, hold the sides where my thumb is so the fold doesn’t pop out.

Once your boats are complete, it’s time to make the sails and shape flags!

Sail time! Shapes are so fun! I used a hexagon, trapezoid, parallelogram, circle, square, rectangle, right triangle, octagon, diamond, and triangle. I made the shapes in Word and printed them on standard 65 lb. card stock. For an added lesson I added the names on the back of the shapes.

Here’s the process: #1 Cut out the shapes. #2 Glue shapes to toothpicks (tips cut-off). #3 Poke a hole in the boat. #4 Add hot glue at the base of the toothpick. I used the remaining shapes as flags!

This is totally optional — I added “oars!” Let’s set-up and play!

Here’s our finished boats and flags. We added a piece of styrofoam under the flags, a little foliage, and sand. After our shape lesson, C took the flags out of the pool to save them for later. Kids turn — time to explore imaginative and sensory play in our ocean pool!

We added water beads, clear gems, rocks, beach shells, miniature ocean creatures, and water to our crab pool! Luckily, we had the crab pool from when he was a baby. Let’s meet our ocean creatures!!

Look! It’s our friends string ray, starfish, and 8-legged octopus! They’re so shimmery and colorful!

Sea turtle is slowing migrating back to the ocean! Animal fact! Sea turtles spend their entire lives at sea, except when adult females come ashore to lay eggs several times per season every 2 to 5 years. After about sixty days, baby sea turtles, known as hatchlings, emerge from their sandy nests and make their way to the ocean. Wow, those are brave little hatchlings!

Penguin, look out below! Octopus is searching for his coral reef den! Animal fact! Did you know octopuses have three hearts. Two of the hearts pump blood through two gills, while the third pumps blood through the body — fascinating!

Sea shell is taking a ride on the Sampan boat!

I just adore the colorful sea shells! Little C couldn’t get enough of those slippery water beads! Today’s ocean pool was a great sensory experience that gave him the chance to play, create, investigate, and explore! I’d say sea turtle was his favorite. It was a windy day too, so the boats really zoomed in the water! He kept saying, “Parallel-gm, parallel-gm moving in the water!”

For more origami and ocean fun, check out C’s Under The Sea Birthday Party! There’s lots of DYI tutorials on his party designs. Thank you for joining us in our journey today as we explored play through imagination! (note) Please always supervise your child during play and never leave them unattended, especially around water.

Follow along and join in the fun at:

Crayon Box Chronicles | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter | Bloglovin’

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I love it Heather, thanks so much for sharing! I would never have thought to make a boat out of wax paper, what a brilliant idea! My kids love origami, and they are going to love these! We all love comments, so why not pop over and visit Crayon Box Chronicles and tell her how much you enjoyed her post on Housing A Forest.

Just a few of my favorite posts from Crayon Box Chronicles to get you started:

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car

My kids love creating and tinkering. It makes me smile, since I never know what they will be building next. Some of their favorite projects include a fun Elastic-Band Launcher and a noisy Tin Can Howler. When I was contacted by Craft Project Ideas to review their Made By Me Wooden Cars, my kids were super excited! Just to be clear, we were given this product for an honest review and the best part is…they are also offering one of my lucky readers their own Wooden Car Kit. How cool it that! This might be the easiest competition to enter ever, check out the bottom of the post to find out how!

Since I already mentioned that my kids love to build and tinker, it will come as no surprise that they had a blast building and painting their wooden cars. However, they also wanted to add their own twist to the already cool race cars. Balloon Cars have been something that we have been meaning to make for a long time. So we combined our super cool race cars with a little speed from a balloon, creating an awesome DIY race car that your kids will love.

Before I get into building our cool balloon race cars, let me just say this kit was a breeze to put together. The directions were super simple to follow, and everything that you need is included. As a mom, I loved that each of the cars came in their own bag. No sorting parts or hours spent trying to figure what part goes where. Love that!

Once they had most of the race cars assembled, they took the cars outside to do a quick sanding. I personally love the look natural, but the kids are all about the bright colors:)

Simple painting tip: For the photo we set the sides in place. However, we actually glued them on after the kids painted them. This made it easy for the kids to paint all the little crevices, especially behind the fenders.

Each car comes with 4 paint colors and 1 container of glue. (We only used a fraction of the paint that was in the little tubs) I love that only one coat of paint was needed to achieve the colors that the kids were looking for, especially once the kids added the detail stickers. These little race cars turned out to be a fun a simple project that is easy enough to complete in an afternoon.

How to Build a DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car:

Build and Paint Wooded Car Kit
1 Balloon
4″ piece of 3/4″ plastic tubing ~ found at a hardware store
Tape ~ we used colorful electrical tape

Slide the plastic tube into the balloon so that over half of the tubing is inside the balloon and secure with tape. The extra tube inside the balloon helps to stabilize the balloon, when the air is released. We found without it, the balloon flopped to one side and squeaked like crazy. Honestly my kids loved it, but I think I would have been driven batting in just a few moments. Once we added the extra length of tubing, no more squeaking and a happy mom:)

Next tape the balloon and tubing to the back fenders of the race car. The kids wanted the make sure their custom paint job and stickers were not harmed when the tape was removed. Love it!

Use the plastic tube to blow up the balloon. It may take a bit of effort, so an adult may have to assist in blowing. The larger tube can make it a bit tricky to blow up. We tried using a drinking straw, but since our cars are wooden, the straw did not force out enough air at one time to make our race cars zoom. We found that the wider opening of the tube worked perfect.

Hold your finger over the end of the tube until you are ready to let your race car speed away. As you can tell, the kids loved it!

Win Your Own Wooden Car Kit!

Winning your own Made by Me wooden Car Kit is super easy, and I know you want one! Keep reading to find out the rules, I promise entering this competition is super easy.

To enter the competition…you need to leave a comment on this post by midnight (CST) on Monday September 2nd, 2013, telling us why you would like to win or what you would do with your car kit if you did win. I told you it was going to be easy and painless. I love reading your comments so this is really a bonus for me too:)

My kids will be helping me choose the best answer and that person will win their own Build and Play Kit. We love creativity, so get your thinking caps on and ask your kids to help come up with your best answer! Unfortunately the competition is only open to US residents that are 18 years or older, with a non PO box address (the kit will be shipped via Fed Ex which doesn’t ship to PO boxes).

Competition Rules

One entry per person ~ you must be over 18, with a United States non PO box address.
You have until midnight (CST) on Monday September 2nd, 2013 to leave your comment.
You must give your e-mail address along with your comment, so I can contact you.
You must tell me why you want to win this fun Build and Play Wooden Car Kit or what you would do with it. Remember creativity matters, so have fun with your answers!

I will send the winning e-mail address to Craft Project Ideas so that they can arrange the delivery of your Kit.

No sad faces if you don’t win. You can also purchase this wooden car kit at Walmart.

Glowing Bread Clay Recipe

Fall Recipe for Play ~ Glowing Bread Clay. No Black light needed!

Glowing Bread Clay Recipe:

Homemade Cranberry Fall Paint Recipe

Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough

No-Cook Fall Play Recipe that’s Edible!

Pumpkin Spice Marshmallow Dough Recipe:

Ocean Sensory Pool

DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car

How to Build a DIY Balloon Powered Wooden Car:

Win Your Own Wooden Car Kit!

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